QUICKBOOKS or ACCESS?

[Talal Itani]

Dear Friends,

I have a very small business, and I am looking for software to keep track of
my inventory, customers, sales, generate invoices, and sales receipts,
compute total sales. I am aware of QuickBooks and Microsoft Access. I do
not need the software to do accounting and taxes. Please give me some
recommendations. If I use access, can I find a good ready-made template?
Do you recommend something else, like Filemaker?

Thank you.
Talal.

 

[Rick Brandt]

Dear Friends,

I have a very small business, and I am looking for software to keep
track of my inventory, customers, sales, generate invoices, and sales
receipts, compute total sales. I am aware of QuickBooks and
Microsoft Access. I do not need the software to do accounting and
taxes. Please give me some recommendations. If I use access, can I
find a good ready-made template? Do you recommend something else,
like Filemaker?
Thank you.
Talal.

Quickbooks (not even close).

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Talal Itani:

not need the software to do accounting and taxes. Please give me some
recommendations. If I use access, can I find a good ready-made template?
Do you recommend something else, like Filemaker?

I've been doing Access development for a living for over 10 years.

I've also used Quickbooks for my little one-man business.

Although I've never used/explored any MS Access template of the kind you're
interested in, I'd say Quickbooks is the choice - hands-down.

Reason: QB costs less than a hundred bucks, it's a sure thing, comes with
instructions, and has a DB/structure that's widely-understood by accountants (in
the event that you have some scope creep...).

 

[Krista H]

I think it depends on how many people will need access to the data in
quickbooks. Quickbooks is good for a one man shop but if you have a few
employees who need access to your customer data, such as order history or
contacts, then quickbooks may not be right for you as it does not have very
good security features for limiting access between customer data and your
financial data. In other words, if you give your employees access to your
customer order information you also give them access to your
financial/payroll information.

I do not know of templates that are good for what you are looking for sorry.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I think it depends on how many people will need access to the data
in quickbooks. Quickbooks is good for a one man shop but if you
have a few employees who need access to your customer data, such
as order history or contacts, then quickbooks may not be right for
you as it does not have very good security features for limiting
access between customer data and your financial data. In other
words, if you give your employees access to your customer order
information you also give them access to your financial/payroll
information.

Do you mean there's some kind of issue using the QB ODBC driver in
Access, where you have to give full access to everything in QB order
to use any of it?

 

[Paul Thomas, CPA]

I have a very small business, and I am looking for software to keep track
of my inventory, customers, sales, generate invoices, and sales receipts,
compute total sales. I am aware of QuickBooks and Microsoft Access. I do
not need the software to do accounting and taxes. Please give me some
recommendations. If I use access, can I find a good ready-made template?
Do you recommend something else, like Filemaker?

If you have a minor amount of inventory, and you want to track it through
POS software, then take a look at QB and their retail POS program. You
don't say what kind of operation you have, be it retail or manufacturing or
services (although you say you have inventory). QB is good for retail
operations to a large degree, and while they have gotten better over the
yeas, Peachtree is probably best for a manufacturing environment where you
need to follow lots and lots of inventory parts to completion.


You should be able to find a QB PRO-Advisor in your area who can best advise
you on what you need, as well as help you get it installed, and get you and
any staff trained up on the system, as well - they will be there over time
to answer questions and provide other assistance when needed.

 

[Tom The Great]

Dear Friends,

I have a very small business, and I am looking for software to keep track of
my inventory, customers, sales, generate invoices, and sales receipts,
compute total sales. I am aware of QuickBooks and Microsoft Access. I do
not need the software to do accounting and taxes. Please give me some
recommendations. If I use access, can I find a good ready-made template?
Do you recommend something else, like Filemaker?

Thank you.
Talal.

They don't really compare. My vote goes to Quickbooks. M$ has a
small business accounting software, but my accountant only uses
Quickbooks.

later,

tom @ www.FreelancingProjects.com

 

[BillMacD]

Neither. Look at RetailEdge www.retailedge.com I believe it would do
what you want. I do not have an interest in the company other than use
their software and it will do all you say you want.